


a whisper without you

by tiniestawoo



Series: I could never give you peace [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Getting Back Together, Lawyer OC, Lawyer Peter Hale, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Reunions, ex boyfriends, original character is critical to the peace universe storyline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:02:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25963291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiniestawoo/pseuds/tiniestawoo
Summary: Scott McCall needs a lawyer and he called the only person he could think of that might be able to provide one for him.Or well, for Theo.That's all just nuance to Peter anyway, who decides to face the part of his past he's been avoiding for the last three and a half years.
Relationships: Peter Hale & Original Male Character(s), Peter Hale/Original Male Character(s)
Series: I could never give you peace [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1869178
Comments: 4
Kudos: 34





	a whisper without you

**Author's Note:**

> This is *not* a Sceo story, per se, but this was me working out my decision to make Ari Jansen, the lawyer that Peter contacts for Scott and Theo in Wasting your Honor!! So, here's a little backstory about who he is and how he's related to Peter. 
> 
> It's also a valid standalone fic. For me to care about OC's I need to learn them the way I have all of the canon characters that I love so much. So, here's my attempt to make him a real, rounded person!!

Peter tapped his fingers in a rhythm against his desk, staring at the dark screen of the cell phone he’d just hung up. His other hand was pinching the bridge of his nose, massaging away the start of what he assumed was going to be a months long headache. 

Scott McCall needed a lawyer.

To be more specific, Theo Raeken needed a lawyer. One willing and able to fight a prostitution charge that he was, in fact, guilty of. In terms of morArity, prostitution was far from the worst thing that any of them had done (Scott included), but it was an offense oft-mishandled by the justice system. 

There was a time in his life when Peter would have taken the case himself. Before Kate Argent set fire to his family home. Before he’d spent six years in agony, died and been resurrected, and then tried (and failed) to kill Scott McCall. Now, his history was a bit too fuzzy to even risk anyone from the mundane world looking into, which prevented him from reclaiming his license to practice law.

This situation was a delicate one. From what Scott had said, Theo was largely unwilling to talk about his past, but had admitted to prior similar offenses. Theo was also nineteen, had very probably committed more murders than Peter had, and was a Dread Doctors Experiment. One of the few surviving ones. 

The average lawyer would never be able to take this case and win. An average lawyer would get the sentence down to a few weeks or a month in lockup, maybe even eliminate the fine, and then charge Theo an exorbitant amount of money (Which really, at this point, meant charging Peter an exorbitant amount of money) for their services.

Peter tapped his fingers again and reached down to wake the screen of his laptop. There was one person he could trust to do this, and do it right.

There was just the matter of the fact that he probably thought Peter was dead.

\--

“Mr. Sales?” The secretary was a young Black woman with long, curly black hair and a bright smile. “Mr. Jansen is just finishing up his last phone meeting. He’ll see you in a moment if you’d like to take a seat.” She motioned towards a leather couch to the side of the room.

Peter gave her a nod and a smile of his own and walked over to the couch, running his hand reverently against the buttery leather. The office smelled clean, almost artificially so. The only lingering chemosignals were from the secretary who was apparently very frustrated with whatever it was Ari had her working on. 

Peter sat back against the couch, crossing one leg over the other knee and studying the ornate wooden door. If he tried he could hear the conversation the man on the other side of the door was having with whoever he was on the phone with. Uncharacteristically, he chose not to listen.

Ari Jansen had – a million years ago, it felt like – been Peter’s best friend at one point in time. The end of their friendship had coincided with, as so often happens, the beginning of their romantic relationship. They’d been on a break from each other when Peter had been trapped in the fire, and he was sure Ari, like much of the world, assumed he’d died in the fire with the rest of his family. 

His real crime was that in the last three and a half years, he’d never bothered to correct that information.

Peter looked up when the door opened, his breath catching in his throat as he took in the sight of the man he’d once claimed to love; dressed in an impeccably fitted dress shirt and pants, brown eyes narrowed, dark, curly hair an unruly cloud around his head. There was a clench to his jaw and fear in his scent. The years had been kind to him. “Mr. Sales,” He said, the hint of an accent Peter knew was Dutch hiding under his disbelieving tone. 

Peter aimed for a confident smile and climbed to his feet, heading through the ornate wooden door, and waiting for Ari to close – and lock – it behind them before he spoke. “I wasn’t sure if using my real name would be better or worse.” 

“Better or worse than walking out of my office to see a ghost?” Ari scoffed and dropped into a chair on the other side of a large desk, leaning forward to put his head in his hands. “How are you here, Peter?” 

Peter took a seat in one of the pair of armchairs on the other side of the desk. A part of him – stronger than he’d expected it to be – ached to comfort Ari, but he knew he had no right. “I didn’t die in the fire.” 

“From what I heard, three years ago, your nephew killed you,” Ari said, muffled by his hands. “Those were the rumours, anyway.”

Peter sat back heavily and stared at the bookshelves behind Ari. “The rumours were true.” 

Ari was the human son of a werewolf. When he and Peter had met in law school, he’d picked up on some of Peter’s more eccentric habits and confronted him. It had been ballsy and brave and if Peter let himself be honest, he’d fallen in love with the man that very day, even if it had taken a year and a half for either of them to admit it. 

Ari looked up and stared at Peter with impossibly sad brown eyes. “So the resurrection story – with the Banshee. That’s also true?” 

Peter nodded. 

Ari’s eyes narrowed, and he sat back against his own chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “Did you really try to kill the True Alpha?” 

That forced a small smile to Peter’s lips. “It wasn’t my finest moment.” He’d never admitted it to anyone – not even the True Alpha himself. Ari had always had a way of disarming Peter. “That’s why I’m here, actually.” 

Ari rolled the chair forward, resting both of his elbows on the desk, folding his hands. His face had softened, but he had both of his eyebrows raised. “Has Scott McCall decided to press attempted murder charges?”

Peter smirked. “Not exactly.” He sat forward, mirroring Ari’s position on the other side of the desk. “Have you ever heard of the Dread Doctors?”

\--

An hour later, and both his personal history, and the history of Beacon Hills revisited, Peter was resting comfortably back against the arm chair, one of his legs crossed over the other. His eyes were fixed on Ari, who had started taking notes and was currently skimming them. He cleared his throat and reached down to a drawer in his desk. 

Peter grinned as he withdrew a bottle of whiskey and two glasses, uncorking it without looking away from his notes, pouring some into each of the glasses. When he was done he finally looked up, pushing the whiskey towards Peter. “I don’t have any of the wolfsbane variety –” His eyebrows drew together “– are you even still a werewolf?” 

Peter chuckled and flashed his eyes as he reached for the glass. He heard Ari’s breath catch in his throat and realized why as his hand closed around it. He sat back slowly, averting his gaze. The last time Peter had seen Ari, his eyes had been gold. Now they were the ice blue of a killer. Peter heard the thunk of the tumbler and heard Ari uncapping the bottle again, and the telltale glug of pouring liquid.

“Laura,” Peter said quietly, the answer to the question Ari hadn’t asked. 

“Your niece?” 

Peter nodded, taking a sip of the whiskey and staring at the setting sun through a window. “Six years, Ari. I burned for six years. When I came to, finally healing courtesy of the alpha spark, I knew I’d never outrun that particular mistake.”

“So you ran towards it instead,” Ari said. Peter turned to him, studied the frown lines pulling on his soft brown skin, caught a glimpse of grey hairs that hadn’t been there nearly a decade ago when Peter had last seen him. “You became the monster that her death made you.” 

Peter looked away, glad not for the first time that Ari wasn’t a werewolf. He could smell grief and despair and regret on himself in spades. He nodded though. “You always did know me best,” he whispered, sipping once more at the whiskey, swallowing slowly, letting the burn crawl its way down his throat. 

“Why do you want to help this...chimera?” Ari asked. Peter watched him get up from the chair behind his desk, wandering around to lean against the edge of it closer to Peter. 

Peter’s hands itched to reach out and touch. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed him – missed closeness, missed connection, missed feeling human. Peter finished the whiskey in his glass and leaned past Ari to set it on the desk. “I owe Scott a debt. Several, probably. I bit him, I tried to kill him, he managed to stop the Anuk-Ite before I became a permanent greek statue.” Peter shrugged, uncrossing his legs and turning towards Ari. 

“And it means enough to you that you’re willing to come here after nearly ten years? To pay a debt? Is that all I am?” Ari had dropped his empty glass onto the desk beside Peter’s. 

Peter raised an eyebrow and cocked his head to the side. “I assumed that you’d be willing to help. I wasn’t bold enough to assume there was room for me in your life after all this time.” 

Ari stepped forward, making space for himself between Peter’s legs, staring down at him. His scent was spiked with lust, with desire, and with an old kind of grief that Peter knew all too well. “I refused to believe the rumours,” Ari said, sinking slowly to his knees, his hands finding their way onto Peter’s thighs. “The Peter Hale I knew – I loved – was too stubborn to die.”

“You waited.” The revelation took Peter’s breath away. He sat forward and slowly brought one of his hands to Ari’s face, cupping his cheek and running his thumb along the cheekbone. 

“Not exactly,” Ari said pressing up and resting his forehead against Peter’s. “I looked. You’re a difficult man to compare to, Peter Hale.” 

Peter chuckled quietly. “I missed you,” he said, running his thumb over Ari’s lips. He felt the man press a gentle kiss against the pad of his thumb. “I was afraid you’d turn me away.”

“I could never.” Ari said as he leaned in to kiss him.

\--

It was hours later that Peter remembered he’d been there for a reason that had not involved hasty blow jobs in Ari’s office and then dinner at his gorgeous downtown San Francisco apartment. 

“So, you’re going to take the case?” Peter stroked the expanse of smooth, muscled skin along Ari’s back as he laid with the man draped over his chest. “Theo’s?”

“You could do it yourself, you know,” Ari said. His breath ghosted against the skin of Peter’s throat, drawing a quiet growl from the werewolf. 

“I don’t have time to take the bar. Besides.” Peter tipped Ari’s face up so he could kiss him again, reveling in it after so long. “You’re the more kindhearted of us.” 

“I think you undersell yourself,” Ari said, pressing his lips against Peter’s jaw. “You have the capacity for kindness. You’re just stingy with it.” He smiled. “But yes, I’ll help him.”

**Author's Note:**

> What did you think??? We'll see little glimpses of Ari and Peter going forward in Wasting Your Honor, but I wanted to make sure we got this part of the story from Peter's POV, since WYH is gonna be all Scott or Theo POV.


End file.
